What percent of the Crüe did he own? Who was the
guy with the blonde and blue hair? How does Jesus fit into all this?
Why did he hold the gun to his head? When did he try and get it back?

On
the 1st of June 1997, a Sunday morning at 7:40 am my time, I
caught up with Bill Larson via telephone to Los Angeles California.
Chronological Crue is proud to bring you this amazing interview.

Chronological Crue: What's your involvement with Mötley Crüe in the
early days? How did it all begin?

Bill
Larson: You want the complete story from beginning to end I take it?

CC:
I guess so. Chronological Crue is about the complete story of Mötley
Crüe and that's what the Crüeheads like to read.

BL:
Of course. Well at least from my perspective it was short lived, but
there was still some bits 'n' pieces there that probably are
intriguing. It's been such an enormously long time since I even thought
about all this stuff.

CC:
Sure.

BL:
It started back in... I think it was '82 or something like that, pretty
close to that. Anyway I think it was during the summer or early spring
of... When was it that, ahhh...

CC:
Well it was '81 that they actually formed, and it was in April of '81
they actually started recording a demo tape and that's when Allan
Coffman's first involvement came into play.

BL:
You're gonna know the dates a little better than I do.

CC:
That's fine.

BL:
You're gonna have to fill in the blanks.

CC:
Yeah, no that's fine.

BL:
I'm vague on that, because like I said, it's been a long time.

CC:
Sure.

BL:
I think it was just after the album itself had been released on Leathür
Records.

CC:
Ahhh, OK.

BL:
I'm not exactly sure when that was. Pretty soon after Greenworld had
distributed the Leathür Records Too Fast For Love, the original one.

CC:
Right. So we're looking around about Christmas time in 1981 / early
1982.

BL:
That sounds about right, but more going into '82. So it was towards
Christmas time, winter time more or less of 1981, that a friend of
mine... I was in radio at the time. I was Assistant Promotions Director
for a radio station in Michigan and I was doing Concert Production work
out of Detroit with a Production Company at the time... and a friend of
mine who worked as the distributor for the local regions of record
stores around there, brought me a copy of the Leathür Records Too Fast
For Love saying, "You gotta hear this. This is the greatest thing I've
heard." And I took one listen to it and completely fell in love with
it. The look. The sound, was something that I'd never heard before and
I just became a huge huge Mötley Crüe fan right then and there once I
heard it. Kind of like when I first heard Kiss for the first time.

CC:
Yeah, know the feeling.

BL:
Hmmm... it's like you hear it once and then that's it, that's the
greatest band you ever heard.

CC:
Yep.

BL:
I ended up falling so much in love with it, that I knew that I wanted
to do something with them, and like I said, at the time I was doing
Concert Production out of Detroit, and at the same time Mötley had just
started their tour up in Canada. That little tour where they were
getting bomb and death threats.

CC:
That's it. Crüesing Through Canada.

BL:
Yeah, the very first Canadian tour which was kind of like a disaster.

CC:
Correct.

BL:
I ended up contacting Allan Coffman. I think it was that summer. Was it
the summer of '82?

CC:
That's right.

BL:
OK. Summer of '82. I got a hold of Allan for the first time and the
idea was that I was going to... When they came down out of Canada after
finishing the Canadian tour, they were going to wind up in Toronto and
come across the border into Detroit from Toronto after playing the last
date in Canada, and I was going to do the very first, you know, Welcome
Back To The US concert performance.

CC:
OK.

BL:
At a little small club in Detroit. You gotta keep in mind back in that
point in time, their biggest following was entirely in Los Angeles,
California.

CC:
Right.

BL:
Nobody... Nobody knew who Mötley Crüe was outside of California back in
that point in time. But I was willing to take a chance at 'em and I had
set up everything for the club date and everything.

CC:
Do you remember the name of the club?

BL:
I'm trying to remember... like I said, this is such an enormously long
time ago.

CC:
Sure.

BL:
I wouldn't venture a guess. Club names are so old. There was four or
five clubs that I dealt with down there anyway, so I don't remember
exactly which one out of the clubs down there.

CC:
Sure.

BL:
All this stuff has been buried as information for such a long time now.
OK. Anyway, I was going to do the show in Detroit when they came down
out of Canada, but of course, as you know, that tour got cancelled
because of all the trouble that they were running into up there.

CC:
And that they were causing themselves.

BL:
Yeah. Halfway through the tour they called it quits and decided not to
do it anymore, but during the course of time that you know, prior to
the set up of that show, Allan and I had been discussing a little bit
of everything, and at the time he was... I think it was right at the
time when Elektra Records and all the other record companies were
starting to vie for Mötley Crüe, so far as signing them to a major
label.

CC:
That's right, yeah.

BL:
And everybody was coming in with offers. Virgin was coming in with
offers, Elektra obviously, and a few others were bidding for them at
that point in time, and Allan, who was a General Contractor to start
with. He wasn't exactly a Music Manager by any stretch of the
imagination.

CC:
That's right. He actually came into it... He was a friend of Mick's
mate Stick, I believe.

BL:
Yeah. I think it was Stick. Yeh. Precisely. Allan was in Construction
basically, up in Grass Valley in Northern California. He knew at the
time he needed help with the next level. He was just at that point
where they were just getting signed to Elektra Records and he knew that
he needed some kind of help to more or less take the band to the next
level. The two stages that he really lacked in. He knew that he didn't
know anything about radio, and he didn't know much about the concert or
touring end of things.

CC:
Right.

BL:
And my having been in radio, and also concert production, I knew enough
about those two sides of the ball game so that I could actually help
him take care of radio promotions... Anything to do with radio, also to
act as more or less the Tour Manager and the Tour Co-ordinator on his
behalf when dealing with all the concert production stuff... Touring
and stuff like that, that he needed. And he knew that he needed help
desperately, plus he was also running out of money at that time. He had
mortgaged his house. This is something that I have never seen in any of
the articles written about what happened before. It was never really
discussed, because Nikki of course made a big brouhaha about that they
weren't making any money towards that Christmas and they didn't even
have money for Christmas trees, etc. etc.

CC:
Yeah, that's right.

BL:
But, one of the things he failed to mention was the fact that their old
manager Allan had mortgaged his house three times to pay for everything
to get them to that level.

CC:
Right...

BL:
It's not like it was really super cheap to bring them to the point
where they could actually get signed. A lot of the shows and stuff that
they put on were very expensive, 'cause they always went out and did
big production little shows in these little clubs around California.

CC:
Well they used to hire a lot of equipment from S.I.R. to make the stage
and the impact look much larger...

BL:
...than it actually was. And of course all that took money, which came
out of Allan's pockets. Allan made sure he wasn't paying the band
directly a lot of the time. He gave them a little allowance which he...

CC:
$20 it started off at.

BL:
I think they weren't too appreciative of that, but they also didn't
take into account that sometimes the stage props would cost a few
thousand dollars for those individual shows that they wanted to do.

CC:
Yeah.

BL:
You know, they didn't think in those terms. They just saw that it had
come around Christmas of '82, they were pretty well broke and they
couldn't afford to buy Christmas trees and of course there were other
problems on top of that.

CC:
Sure.

BL:
At least from what I was seeing. I'm more or less pretty neutral to the
whole thing nowadays. I couldn't care less.

CC:
Yeah sure.

BL:
You know, enough time has passed at this point in time that Mötley Crüe
is such a non entity in my life. It affected me pretty heavily back
then... But anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.

CC:
Sure.

BL:
So, ummm... Lemme see. Where were we?

CC:
Well, we're looking at where Allan Coffman is actually feeling himself
that he needs some help to take the band to the next level.

BL:
He knew that he needed help and the record company itself. Elektra was
going, "OK, you're a construction person, you're a general contractor
and you need help yourself. So why don't you give the band to a major
management company?" Elektra wanted them to, more or less, hand the
band over to one of the majors.

CC:
Right.

BL:
So far as management was concerned.

CC:
So he was getting pressured there as well.

BL:
He was getting pressured all the way around and he felt that he could
carry it on to the next level. Allan had his problems too, I came to
learn later on. Allan was no saint in this matter by any stretch of the
imagination. He was making a lot of mistakes right and left. One of the
things that caused problems between the label and a lot of other
places, so far as Allan was concerned, was that he kind of came across
and acted like a little 'Mafioso' kind of guy from Grass Valley. He
came in and tried to play this muscle game and push his weight around a
little bit and it kind of back fired on him in a big way because people
were just trying to get rid of him after a period of time. He let his
ego get in the way a bit, and on the same token, he also pretended he
had a lot more money than he actually did. He actually didn't have a
lot of money at that point in time... like I said, he'd mortgaged his
house three times so he was pretty well to the point of being broke.
And he also wanted money at that point in time. He didn't want to give
up all the interest in the band and he wanted to continue on, having
some degree of control over it. He had Power of Attorney in his
contracts to more or less do the kind of deal that he did with me,
which is... What he did was assign a third of his managerial interest
in Mötley Crüe, which was... He owned 15% and he sold me 5% of his 15.
It wasn't an extra 5% out of the band's pocket. It was out of his.

CC:
Out of his share.

BL:
Yeah. It was one third of his actual share with the band. I think the
band never really realised that. When things fell apart they thought
that Allan was, like, ripping them off for another 5% for me but that
wasn't the case at all. They just needed some kind of an excuse to get
rid of him at the time.

CC:
Right.

BL:
But again, I'm getting ahead of myself.

CC:
Well, we're only looking... sort of November '82.

BL:
This is all October and November '82 that this is coming down. So Allan
sold me 5% of HIS interest for $25,000 which was pretty close to my
parents' life savings. My Dad was a school professor... Retired school
professor. My Mom was a housewife. So it's not like they had tons and
tons of money, but they believed, like I believed, that this was my
opportunity to get out of Michigan and actually get involved in the
music industry in a big way.

CC:
So you saw it as quite a big break for yourself.

BL:
It was a break. It was a chance for me to get into the real mainstream,
big league music industry, because you can't do it when you're living
in a little town in Michigan.

CC:
That's right.

BL:
It doesn't quite work that way. Actually, I lived in Davison Michigan,
which is like ten miles outside of Flint which makes it an even smaller
town. Anyway, at that point in time I didn't have an Attorney in
Michigan. I had just a standard Attorney review the contracts, not an
Entertainment Attorney, so of course he didn't know what those
contracts really meant. He just basically look at them and said, "Well
everything looks in order you know." So anyway, Allan sold me the
interest and I moved out practically immediately. I packed up
everything that I had and drove out. It was actually in November of '82.

CC:
Yep.

BL:
I drove out and I met with Allan up in Grass Valley... stayed a couple
of days with him in his house. Grass Valley is kind of like, to the
North East... about an hour or two north east of San Francisco.

CC:
Right. Allan's with his wife Barbara at the time?

BL:
With his wife Barbara at the time, and he had two daughters.

CC:
Right.

BL:
And I stayed up there with him for a few days and he kind of brought me
up to speed with everything that was going on. And then we both came
down to L.A. He came down with me to L.A. and that's where I was going
to meet the band and meet all the record company people and stuff like
that. I came down, got situated and found myself an apartment right
away in the Valley, and we just started going around meeting people,
having lunches. It was pretty wild, having lunch with major agents from
William Morris Agency and various other places... record company
execs... like at the Beverly Hills Polo Lounge and other really
extravagant places and here I am, basically I was I think 22 or 21 at
the time.

CC:
Wow.

BL:
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm like 21. I was really young in those days.
Green as hell. I didn't know what the hell I was doing there. I was
this newbie, fresh out of College, just thrown in to the big, very
elaborate world that I knew nothing about whatsoever, but I'm having
lunches at the Polo Lounge with these real big heavy weight players and
being driven around in limousines... And I of course, adapted to the
game real quickly. I learned real quick to have that poker face, which
is where you sit there and look like you're bored silly, 'cause
everyone else around you looks like they're bored silly and inside I'm
going like, "Oh my God, that's Tom Selleck sitting at the next table.
Oh God!" You know, all these TV stars and stuff, and inside I'm like
doing cartwheels not believing that I'm at this place or doing this.

CC:
Wow.

BL:
On the outside I'm looking like I'm bored silly. You know, it's pretty
funny. It was pretty funny at the time actually, 'cause I didn't know.
I had no idea what was actually going on and I actually knew nothing
about all the real true behind the scenes stuff that was going on.
There was lots of warning signals that there was trouble in paradise,
so to speak, but I didn't know. I was too young and I didn't have the
hindsight or the... you know, enough knowledge of the business of
people to really be able to pick up on any of the clues myself while I
was there.

CC:
Yeah.

BL:
I met Mötley for the very first time at S.I.R. studios. He [Allan] took
me over there, and I should have known something was funky to begin
with. The way that very first day he took me there to introduce me to
them in the studio, because the second we got there he makes a beeline
for the bathroom and doesn't introduce me, and I'm just kind of like
standing there wondering, "OK, what's gonna happen." Then Nikki came in
with… and at the time he was dating, Lita Ford. Lita Ford was with him,
and I just decided OK... What the heck. I'm just gonna go up and
introduce myself. So I did. Of course I didn't think enough to
introduce myself as one of their new managers. I just introduced myself
as myself, Bill Larson, you know, and they were kind of like, were
looking at me like, "Ahhh Well. OK. Well, who are you?" They're
thinking, "Well, who is this guy? I don't know who this guy is." Then
Allan comes out of the bathroom after I'd already introduced myself to
everybody, and he doesn't make any mention of the fact that I was his
new partner, in any way, shape or form.

CC:
Ahhh.

BL:
So you know, like I said, there's a lot of little tell tale warning
signs that I look back now and they were like flashing neon signs all
over the place.

CC:
That's right, but that only comes with experience and hindsight.

BL:
Exactly! I view the $25,000 as my tuition into the music industry. It's
like, welcome to the industry, pay the price and bang, you're doomed.
That bad! Anyway, as time progressed we went to a couple of shows. The
last one of which I went to was at the Pasadena Civic Center where
Vince Neil did the chain sawing of the mannequin.

CC: Right, yep.

BL:
You heard the story about... he got a mannequin. He did the mannequin
up to look like Wendy O'Williams from The Plasmatics and he took a
chainsaw and basically chain sawed the head off during the show and
that entire little stint cost about two grand.

CC:
Wow.

BL:
The props for that night alone ended up costing two grand 'cause they
had to go buy the chainsaw, the mannequin, and all the other pyro and
goodies for that one show, and I knew for a fact 'cause I saw the paper
work and the accounting later on. Out of the $25,000 that I had sent to
Allan, about half of the money went to Allan himself personally. He
ended up paying some of his own bills and various other things... and
the other half went to Mötley Crüe for various things, including all
the expenses of that night's show, which was about $2,000 and there was
other expenses on top of that too. So half of my money actually went to
Mötley Crüe, and the other half went into Allan's pocket personally,
because he was broke, you know.

CC:
Sure.

BL:
At that point in time, he was living a smoke and mirrors type of
existence trying to pretend like he still had lots of money and he was
doing really well, when he was actually flat f*cking broke.

CC:
Yeah, yep.

BL:
And just living on a shoestring. So anyway, things progressed and I met
some more people. I met a weaselly little guy, who was the merchandise
person for the band at the time. He was doing all the T-shirts and
stuff, and he was the only person in L.A. that I actually kind of,
became friends with. The guy turned out to be a complete sleazebag
beyond all words. He was ripping off the band for money... he was just
a snake in the grass beyond all belief. He got arrested and ended up
spending time in jail for Statutory Rape of a teenage boy. You know,
it's like YUK and I hung around with this creep. I was in a very bad
place.

CC:
Yeah right.

BL:
You know I had no family. I had no friends. I knew absolutely no-one
when I came to L.A. All my relatives were in either Flint or back in
Michigan, or back in Sweden 'cause my Mom is Swedish.

CC:
Right OK.

BL:
I was completely thrown into this environment all by myself without
anybody. No safety net whatsoever. As to what was going to happen... No
friends or anybody I could actually talk or relate to in anyway, so I
ended up spending time with this little sleazebag merchandiser. He was
the only one. Obviously he was sleazy, so he latched on to me on a big
level, being the new manager, and he didn't even realise I was Allan
Coffman's new partner to any degree.

CC:
Right OK.

BL:
You see, like, nobody really knew. The Pasadena show was full of little
tell tale sign there was trouble too. Allan was doing an awful lot of
things wrong, but on the same token, he was doing a few things right.
He firmly didn't want the band to have anything to do with drugs at the
time. Unfortunately, the band really wanted to do drugs at the time.

CC:
Yep. Yep.

BL:
And you know, various record industry people were throwing cocaine up
their noses at an incredible rate. Allan was like real vehemently
against that and also at the time it was kind of like a transition in
time between when they wanted a change of image so to speak. The band
had always been kind of a fun and party band with a fun party, you
know, image that wasn't too serious, almost a little cartoonish to a
degree.

CC:
Sure.

BL:
And Nikki and the rest of the band decided that they... Mostly Nikki.
From what I was told by Allan, Nikki ran the show all the time. Nikki
IS Mötley Crüe for all intensive purposes so far as direction and
anything else. Whatever Nikki said, is what 's gonna get done. And
Nikki wanted to go into the Shout At The Devil type of routine at that
time. That's the direction in which Nikki was focussing in on.

CC:
Right.

BL:
And Allan was vehemently against them changing that image... into
changing that way 'cause a lot of fans at that time really liked the
cute image, the fun image that Mötley had and they were getting letters
saying please don't change in this direction. We don't want you to go
in that way. So there was controversy there. From what I understood,
the record company was also encouraging them behind Allan's back to go
in that direction also.

CC:
Ahhh OK.

BL:
So at the Pasadena show, he almost.... Which is really funny. Here I am
at that time, I had really super long hair. One side was a kind of
bleached blonde streak which I had dyed blue in certain places. So I
had this really long hair and he wanted me to show up in like a 3 piece
suit and look real managerial which was ridiculous. It was utterly
stupid of me to do that, but of course I did. I didn't want to rock any
boats or anything. I didn't know anything about what was going on
anyway... So anyway, I show up as his little sidekick and act. I think
he wanted to present this image that here's this mysterious person out
of the blue coming to his side. The band of course didn't know what was
going on. I was walking around the theatre and I went up to the balcony
area and I looked down on stage during sound check time and all four of
the band members are standing there on stage, and I could tell without
hearing them that they were talking about me 'cause they kept looking
up at me on the balcony and in hindsight again, I can just hear them
going, "Who the f*ck is this guy? Where did he come from? What is his
relationship with Allan?" They didn't know. They had no idea. Allan had
just nonchalantly forgotten to tell them. They knew that he was
negotiating with somebody about the management situation but at the
time they didn't realise that Allan had actually gone ahead and done it.

CC:
Right. OK.

BL:
So... Here I was. Thrown into the really awkward position of them not
knowing who I was and my not knowing anything about what the hell I was
doing myself. And you know, it got weirder, and weirder and eventually
I told the little sleaze bag merchandising guy the entire story. And he
was like... His jaw dropped when he found out that I was actually
legally one of Mötley Crüe's partners 'cause he had been asked by the
band to find out who I was 'cause they didn't have a clue.

CC:
Hahaha. OK.

BL:
So I made copies of all my contracts because I really felt that the
band should know all this stuff, you know. I wanted to come clean with
the band 'cause I was there on behalf of the band in the first place
and to realise that the band didn't even know that I was Allan's
partner in that capacity... I thought that they should've known that.
So I made copies of all my contracts and handed them to this sleaze
ball and he took off one evening with them, and you know, to make sure
that they knew he took all the contracts to Nikki and Mick Mars. Now,
that was all it took! That was the proverbial straw that broke the
camel's back as far as Mötley was concerned! I still think it went over
their heads that I bought into Allan's percentage. I still think that
they viewed it as another thing Allan was doing to rip them off because
that was right at Christmas time. It was actually one week prior to
Christmas 1982.

CC:
'82.

BL:
That scene I remember specifically. That's something you can't forget
you know?

CC:
Yeah sure.

BL:
There I was. My first Christmas away from home and away from family and
friends and everybody under the sun, and this diaster was about to
happen.

CC:
Wow.

BL:
Yeah. I gave everything to the sleaze ball. He took it to the band and
the very next day... Allan Coffman had got a phone call from the
attorneys. I don't know whether it was Elektra's attorneys or Mötley
Crüe's attorneys, telling him to Cease and Desist as their Manager.
Basically he was fired right then and there.

CC:
Right. OK.

BL:
And when he got fired, I went out the door too because my agreements
were with him.

CC:
And not Mötley Crüe.

BL:
Yep. Bingo!

CC:
And that's it! Wow!

BL:
But the funny thing is, he did have the Power of Attorney to go into
that agreement, and there was a specific clause in the contract that
stated he had the right if he needed to, to assign a portion of his
interest to someone else to help with those managerial services. So
everything that he did so far as I was concerned was legitimate.

CC:
Sure.

BL:
But unfortunately it was, considering I didn't have any agreements with
Mötley themselves. It was kind of like... It was null and void.

CC:
Which probably wouldn't have stuck anyway because they didn't even know
who you were.

BL:
Precisely. So a week prior to Christmas '82, the whole world fell out
from underneath my feet so to speak.

CC:
Sure.

BL:
And they totally devastated Allan. Even though Allan had gotten a
little egotistical and arrogant, and he had done some wrong things, he
certainly didn't deserve to get completely blown apart like he did
because he did put belief in the band. He did put up all of his money.
I think it was like a total of $300,000 over the course of the couple
of years he was involved with the band. Without all that money, they
wouldn't have been able to do those kind of shows and create that kind
of image that ended up getting them the deal they got.

CC:
Yeah sure. The story normally is sort of read, where the Crüe can't
figure out where all the money has gone that they've been earning from
shows and gigs that have been sold out, and from a record company
advance.

BL:
I saw all those books by the way and for the $300,000 that Allan put
into it, they obviously owed him all that money back. So yeah, from
record sales and shows and stuff like that, a lot of that money had to
go to Allan as kind of like re-imbursement, but he ended up putting the
money back into other expenses.

CC:
So they probably didn't realise that Allan was putting in so much money
himself, and they figured that he was just pocketing it rather than a
re-imbursement type situation.

BL:
Precisely, and from what it seemed, they were doing so much drugs at
that point in time already, that they weren't exactly clear minded.
They just wanted to do drugs, get women and do whatever the hell they
wanted pretty much. And considering the record company at that point in
time wanted them to have different management anyway, it's not like the
record company was really gonna side with Allan Coffman in any way
shape or form either.

CC:
Yeah, sure.

BL:
So Allan kind of got railroaded to a great degree. He ended up losing
his house; his wife left him; his daughters can't stand him. They hate
him tremendously now, all these years later. A few days after the
firing had happened, I called up and his wife Barbara answered the
phone and she had just gotten home like an hour earlier and found Allan
pacing around in the backyard with a gun in his hand.

CC:
Oh wow.

BL:
You know, he was that close to... like, killing himself.

CC:
Yeah?

BL:
So it devastated Allan completely 'cause he felt like he had developed,
no matter what, this kind of family feeling between he and the band.
So, you know, you get that kind of feeling sometimes between management
and clients and stuff like that. This came as such a shock to him that
they would do this to him. Now I know there's holes in the story that I
don't fully know all the way around, and at this point in time I
couldn't care less, but back then there was all these pieces of the
puzzle I couldn't figure out and didn't know. But I persevered none the
less.

CC:
Yeah sure.

BL:
I'm still around. I could've easily ended up... I was like clinically
depressed for a couple of years after that had happened because during
that summer, the next summer of '83, my Dad passed away. He had a heart
attack and died, and I went back to the funeral and I found out he'd
never had heart problems before, but he was completely and totally
obsessed with worry over what was gonna happen to me. How I was gonna
make a living. What was gonna happen to the $25,000 which was basically
their life savings that was completely lost, you know. So he was
completely devastated and ended up dying because of it.

CC:
Oh gee.

BL:
For quite a while I blamed myself and I blamed Mötley Crüe for that
also. That was a real horror story in that little aspect of the story.
It was pretty hard for me.

CC:
And this would've been at the time too, when Mötley were actually still
building momentum. You know, they would've just played the US Festival
and had the Shout At The Devil release not long after that... September
'83.

BL:
It was when they were first starting to break open and I was a part of
it before any of that really took place in a big way. But I guess I
persevered. I ended up getting into radio promotion several years later.

CC:
Still in L.A.? You didn't move back to Detroit after your father passed
away?

BL:
No. I didn't move back to Michigan 'cause there was really no future
for me there, you know. I could go into concert production and stuff
like that, but I felt like my place was out here in California.

CC:
Right.

BL:
And since my Dad had died, there was no real point in going back to
Michigan and going BACK. Going back to Michigan would've been like
taking several steps back rather than forward. But after a couple of
years I made a grand discovery that record companies and management
companies would actually pay people to talk to radio stations to get
records played on radio stations.

CC:
Right.

BL:
I did that back when Judas Priest had Point Of Entry, back in 1981, you
know. So it's like... Since I had a relationship through the years with
all these radio station people, I just started making radio station
calls on behalf of records and got 'em played on radio stations and
that was right when the beginning of the metal surge first started out
in the early '80's. I've been a record promoter now for 10 years. I
have my own company, so I persevered pretty well. Over the past 5
years... I hooked up with Tracy Barnes who at the time was Program
Director of ZROCK networks for ABC and he had just left ZROCK. He was
initially intending on taking and selling his format to another
satellite syndication network and I kind of like told him, "Hey. Why do
that? Why sell out to Westwood One syndicators when you can... If you
can possibly go out, put together a business plan, go find investors
and become the next Westwood One."

CC:
Sure.

BL:
It was like, "Oh that's a good idea!" So we developed the business
plan, and we were originally going to do a satellite broadcast company
for hard rock, similar to the ZROCK thing, but then the Internet came
along so Tracy decided we should take it to the Internet and that's
where HardRadio exists today and I'm sure you're aware of what
HardRadio is?

CC:
Definitely.

BL:
We finally found finance for it, and we've been on the air now for
about a year and a half.

CC:
Excellent. So you actually met Tracy through this other radio station
and you decided not long after that you were going to do something
there?

BL:
Yeah. I used to call Tracy all the time, trying to get him to play
records for clients I was representing, so I developed a relationship
with him from that end of the table and it just worked out that him and
I became partners on HardRadio.

CC:
So you would've heard the Crüe's music and come across them over the
years, sort of once we get into the couple of years after your father
passed away. Like '85, right through Girls, Girls, Girls '87 tours, and
the huge Dr. Feelgood in '89/'90.

BL:
Yeah, I followed all that. I ended up filing a lawsuit against them
obviously. It was an attempt. I had to try. That lasted for a few
years. They ended up getting it thrown out of court on a technicality,
but you know, that was almost to be expected in the first place.

CC:
What sort of year is this we're talking about?

BL:
Oh God, this went on... it was around the time of Dr. Feelgood. I'm not
100% sure.

CC:
Yeah.

BL:
I ended up filing a suit with an Attorney out of Boston and he went in
and put an injunction on one of their shows. So the Federal Marshals
came and seized all their funds from one of the shows they did in
Boston, which pissed them off big time.

CC:
Yeah sure.

BL:
Didn't make 'em happy. It didn't make the managers happy or anything
like that, so I'm sure they're not exactly too happy with my name at
least. But the reason I did that entirely was... I would've settled
entirely if they... If I had just of gotten my original $25,000 back.
That's all I ever really wanted, you know. I didn't want millions of
dollars or anything like that. I would've been more interested in... I
came out 'cause I was a fan. I wanted to work with them primarily I
mean, you know. I would've been glad to settle for at least my original
money back; at least half of the original $25,000 that I knew
physically went into the band and was used on behalf of Mötley Crüe.

CC:
Right.

BL:
And I would've settled for that, and a chance to work radio promotions
for them. That's all I ever really wanted but it just didn't quite work
out that way.

CC:
It didn't happen.

BL:
You know. Some things just aren't meant to be, but I think I mentioned
before that I view it as $25,000 tuition and entry fee to get into the
business.

CC:
Yeah. Yep. Well there's a lot of experiences along the way.

BL:
I learned all about contracts real quickly after that - that's for sure!

CC:
I bet you did.

BL:
Spent a lot of time reading management contracts and other contracts
and learning all about the legalities of what it was that actually
ended up happening. But you know, Allan made a lot of mistakes, but the
band wasn't very righteous by any stretch of the imagination either.

CC:
Sure. Can you give me a summary of the band members?

BL:
At the time I saw Nikki as a real asshole and still to this day as kind
of an asshole. Since I'm not part of the band's "inner circle" all I
can do is state an opinion based on a variety of sources and from the
stories I've been told, he's the one who was responsible for firing
Vince Neil and kicking him out of the band. Anything and everything
that ever has happened with the band, Nikki has been responsible for.
Mick Mars is real... pretty mellow. He just goes with the flow and does
whatever he wants to. Tommy... my opinion of Tommy is that he's just a
rock'n'roll kid who wants to play drums, party, and f*ck every woman
that is gorgeous. Whether he's married or not is beside the point but
I'm sure you're aware of that too.

CC:
And Vince?

BL:
Vince himself is just also a rock'n'roll kid. Nikki, I think I would
have problems with. Everything I've heard makes me think Nikki's just a
f*ckin' jerk. He's proven that the way he's interacted with other
people and some of the things he's done. His kicking out Vince out of
the band and the way he did that was really bogus. Not having any
compassion for all the money Allan Coffman did put into it. Not really
caring about anything other than himself. You know, he got married to
Brandi Brandt and now he's no longer with her and they've got kids
together and everything else, and now he's hooked up with another
Baywatch babe. The real truth however, is that I don't really know them
personally, and I'm just stating a biased opinion. I wouldn't be
surprised if by some chance I were to actually meet Nikki and spend
some time with him, that he may turn out to be a great guy. I just
don't know.

CC:
Right OK. That's interesting.

BL:
I'm curious to see how far this new album goes.

CC:
You've heard it all?

BL:
Actually, I was at something called the Concrete F-Fest. Concrete
Marketing always puts on this convention every year, and they just had
it here. I think it was last month.... No wait a minute it was this
month.

CC: It was a couple of weeks ago.

BL: Yeah. It was like 3 weeks ago. They just had that, and they had a
Listening Party for everybody of the brand new Generation Swine, and
Mötley Crüe was there. All the members were there. All four of them
were at this Listening Party where they played the entire album and
they came out and they signed autographs, got down in the crowd, you
know, and everybody was there trying to hand them their old records and
other stuff for them to sign and shit like that. I was just there
'cause I wanted to hear it more or less, not out of rank curiosity,
'cause it was part of the Convention anyway. And by chance, not by my
trying by any chance of the imagination, I ended up like being five
feet away from Nikki. Nikki was like standing there completely swamped
five feet away from me signing autographs. It was a very weird feeling.
It's like, this is the closest I've been to them since '82.

CC:
Wow. And did he recognise you? Probably not.

BL:
I could've walked right up to him and said, "Hello. Hi Nikki. How ya
doing?" He probably would've gone, "Oh, Hi dude."

CC:
Yeah sure.

BL:
Not that I would ever walk up to him and state who I was by any stretch
of the imagination. And even if I were to meet him on that level, I
don't think he'd really care at this point in time.

CC:
Yeah sure.

BL:
So much time has gone by and it's like... It's such water under the
bridge from such a long time ago, and the fact that I sued them; I
don't think he gives a shit. They get sued so many times by so many
people it's sick. When you're big stars like that, you get sued all the
time.

CC:
That's right. People always want to try cut down the tall poppies and
try and ride... and make a buck off them. Bit different in your story
where you were trying to get BACK what you'd already put in.

BL:
Yeh, what I originally put into it. There's, like I said, sides to
every story. All I ever wanted to do was actually work for them and at
least get my money back after everything happened. But it just wasn't
meant to be. You learn from it and you move on. You can't live in the
past. I haven't thought about any of this Mötley stuff for so long,
it's not even funny. I tried.

CC:
I'd like to include an old picture on Chronological Crue.

BL:
I have no pictures of me with Mötley Crüe at all. None. None. None. I
was legally their manager for one month. Hahaha.

CC:
Hahaha.

BL:
You know, it's not like we were hanging out and doing stuff. There's
sideline stories that I always heard and saw... that Allan had a fun
time trying to keep Tommy out of jail 'cause Tommy was always
assaulting his girlfriends; beating the crap out of his girlfriends.
That was an issue. I myself personally saw Nikki go off on a total
innocent stranger out in front of the Troubadour one night. I was out
the front of the Troubadour and Nikki with his best friend Blackie
Lawless from...

CC:
Yeah W.A.S.P.

BL:
And they were both out the front of the Troubadour and there's this
restaurant right next door to the Troubadour, kind of like an Italian
Restaurant. I'm standing like a few feet away from Nikki and Blackie
and this... just a regular guy. There was a party of like four other
people that came out of the restaurant and apparently one of the guys
in that group said something like, you know, "look at the freak show"
or something like that 'cause Nikki looked pretty outrageous back then.

CC:
Sure.

BL:
He said something about Nikki that Nikki overheard him say to his
friends and Nikki just flew on the guy. He started pounding the poor
guy like crazy. Blackie had to like physically drag Nikki off him and
quickly... A couple of Nikki's road crew guys and Blackie quickly
dragged him away and rushed him across the street before the Police
could be called and have Nikki arrested.

CC:
Sure.

BL:
So you know, there were violent outbursts all the time. Plus the drugs
and everything that was going on at the time. I don't think Nikki
would've remembered it the very next day.

CC:
Late in '82 they did a photo shoot for a porn magazine OUI...

BL:
Yeah OUI. There was a picture of him... that was Allan Coffman in that.

CC:
What does Allan look like?

BL:
He was a straight looking guy, wearing a regular white shirt.

CC:
So he's, what? A short guy? Tall? Long hair?

BL:
He was pretty tall. Had short hair. In the picture that was in the back
of the magazine, he's kind of like standing in the back, looking real
straight and bored and uneventful. Whereas the rest of the band is
there and a couple of the road crew people are in the picture too and
they're acting silly. The road crew guys were like acting crazy, you
know, with the naked chicks that were in the picture. Allan's kind of
like, just standing there, looking like a manager!

CC:
So you were around at that time?

BL:
Ah ha. Sure was. I never had any pictures taken with the band cause' I
hadn't moved to L.A. yet. I wasn't involved with them long enough.
Hahaha. It's not like I could walk up to them now and go, "Oh by the
way, I'd like a picture with you guys."

CC:
Sure.

BL:
I don't think so. The only thing I ever got out of it... Elektra
Records didn't want me to sue THEM. They gave me a platinum record for
Shout At The Devil. It's like, "Here! We'll give you a platinum record
if you promise not to sue us." Hahaha.

CC:
So you still have that today?

BL:
Oh yeah. I got it hanging on my wall here in the office.

CC:
Excellent!

BL:
Gotta have that!

CC:
What's Allan Coffman up to these days?

BL:
A few years back, right prior to my starting the lawsuit against the
Crüe, I got a hold of... I tracked him down. His ex-wife, the original
Barbara... And she gave me his new phone number and everything like
that. She was completely disgusted with him obviously. Allan and
Barbara had quite a few old antiques and stuff like that. So they not
only lost the house, they lost all their possessions 'cause of the
Mötley Crüe thing. So they got hurt really bad. His two daughters won't
even speak to Allan. They won't have anything to do with him. They
think that he's a complete fruitcake. And I ended up calling him and
talking to him a little bit myself and he has completely gone off the
deep end. He's... well, I don't know if you call it good or bad, it all
depends on your point of view. He's become a Born Again Christian.

CC:
God. OK.

BL:
Which is, in my book, sometimes the same thing as becoming a lunatic.
You know, he prays to Jesus and turned his whole life over to Jesus.
He's back to doing General Contracting. He obviously had to file
Bankruptcy 'cause he lost everything but he's got back into General
Contracting work. He's doing construction again. He's remarried and his
new wife's name is also Barbara, which I thought was kind of
interesting. He goes from one Barbara to another Barbara. He sold all
his old Mötley Crüe stuff, memorabilia... stuff like that, because he
didn't want to have that 'Satanic' influence in his life, or in his
house any longer.

CC:
Wow!

BL:
And you know, he said that he prays everyday for their souls. That they
will come to see the light of their evil ways. He said he would pray
for me that I would survive here in Los Angeles and not be caught up
with the evil of the music industry. So basically, Allan Coffman has
become a nutcase.

CC:
Hahaha.

BL:
He got destroyed. You know, Mötley destroyed him. Sometimes things like
that will cause people to go to one extreme or another. They get into
alcohol, or go into other kinds of psychosis's, or they become Born
Again Christians.

CC:
Which can be another kind of drug.

BL:
Just as bad. It is. God can be viewed as a drug too for some people.
They get so slaughtered they need something to hold on to. They latch
on to that.

CC:
That's right.

BL:
That's where Allan Coffman is nowadays.

CC:
Yeah, God. That's amazing. Amazing. So he's not in L.A?

BL:
No he's back up in Grass Valley. Remarried and living the Christian
lifestyle, and I have no reason to think he would've changed since
then. At last sighting, that's where Allan Coffman was at!

CC:
All right Bill. I think we'll call it a day at that. That's excellent.
Thanks for your time.

BL:
We've covered quite a bit of ground I think. I can't think of anything
else there. It was just an interesting experience, that it worked out
the way it did. I think I pretty well covered the entire history of my
involvement with the band.

CC:
Excellent.

BL:
And you know what, you're the only one that has this history. There
isn't anybody else I've given interviews on this regard. It's a story I
haven't told to very many people, and after this long period of time, I
don't think anyone else will ever get it. So you've kind of an
exclusive there for whatever it's worth.

CC:
Yeah. People are going to spin out at the things you've had to say.

BL:
Sure. It's all just another perspective. Some more little pieces of the
puzzle. I view Mötley Crüe the same as I would any other band nowadays.
I don't hold any emotional charge to them whatsoever. Enough time has
gone by and I'm completely OK with everything that did happen. There's
no reason to carry any grudges or anything. I'm not bothered by it
anymore.